A blog of liberal, progressive ideas in politics, government, and social issues.

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Trump is alarming our international partners

NBC's top foreign correspondent Richard Engel listened to the debate Monday night and commented on what he heard.

"A lot of things Donald Trump was proposing were frankly destabilizing, dangerous, dangerous to the United States, dangerous to the world order . . . The United States' foreign policy is based on agreements . . . sometimes negotiated over decades and longer.

"If you listen to the debate he's basically saying that he's a business man and he's going to tear up the old agreements and negotiate better deals. If you're a foreign country and you're listening to this and you have an agreement, whether NATO or a nuclear deal or a protection agreement or a sovereignty agreement or a trade agreement, and you suddenly think, "is the leading world power just going to tear up the agreement that we've had for decades?" What is that going to mean for me? Are my neighbors going to invade?"

At one point, in a moment that has gone unremarked by pundits that I have seen, Clinton turned to face the camera and addressed world leaders. She said that she knew many of them were concerned by what they were hearing during this campaign, and she wanted to reassure them that what he was saying, about NATO for example, is not the policy of America. She reiterated that "We do keep our commitments."That was perhaps a bit of planned theater, but it was good strategy and probably necessary, given what he has said and the concern that world leaders have expressed to our state department and to our president.Ralph